Laravel 12 JWT Products & Categories API – Step by Step Guide

In this tutorial, we’ll build a Products & Categories API in Laravel 12 using JWT authentication. We’ll follow Laravel’s RESTful principles with clean controllers, routes, and proper model relationships.

📌 API Endpoints Overview

Categories

Method	Endpoint	Purpose
GET	/api/categories	List all categories
POST	/api/categories	Create a category
GET	/api/categories/{id}	Show category details
PUT	/api/categories/{id}	Update category
DELETE	/api/categories/{id}	Delete category

Products

Method	Endpoint	Purpose
GET	/api/products	List all products
POST	/api/products	Create a product
GET	/api/products/{id}	Show product details
PUT	/api/products/{id}	Update product
DELETE	/api/products/{id}	Delete product

Step 1: Create Models & Migrations

php artisan make:model Category -m
php artisan make:model Product -m

Migration: database/migrations/xxxx_xx_xx_create_categories_table.php

public function up()
{
    Schema::create('categories', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->string('name')->unique();
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

Migration: database/migrations/xxxx_xx_xx_create_products_table.php

public function up()
{
    Schema::create('products', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->string('name');
        $table->text('description')->nullable();
        $table->decimal('price', 10, 2);
        $table->unsignedBigInteger('category_id');
        $table->foreign('category_id')->references('id')->on('categories')->onDelete('cascade');
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

Run migrations:

php artisan migrate

Step 2: Define Relationships

app/Models/Category.php

class Category extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name'];

    public function products()
    {
        return $this->hasMany(Product::class);
    }
}

app/Models/Product.php

class Product extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name', 'description', 'price', 'category_id'];

    public function category()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(Category::class);
    }
}

Step 3: Create Controllers

php artisan make:controller Api/CategoryController --api
php artisan make:controller Api/ProductController --api

Step 4: CategoryController

app/Http/Controllers/Api/CategoryController.php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use App\Models\Category;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class CategoryController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        return response()->json(Category::all(), 200);
    }

    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $validated = $request->validate([
            'name' => 'required|string|unique:categories,name',
        ]);

        $category = Category::create($validated);
        return response()->json($category, 201);
    }

    public function show($id)
    {
        return response()->json(Category::findOrFail($id), 200);
    }

    public function update(Request $request, $id)
    {
        $category = Category::findOrFail($id);

        $validated = $request->validate([
            'name' => 'required|string|unique:categories,name,' . $category->id,
        ]);

        $category->update($validated);
        return response()->json($category, 200);
    }

    public function destroy($id)
    {
        Category::findOrFail($id)->delete();
        return response()->json(['message' => 'Category deleted successfully'], 200);
    }
}

Step 5: ProductController

app/Http/Controllers/Api/ProductController.php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use App\Models\Product;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class ProductController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        return response()->json(Product::with('category')->get(), 200);
    }

    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $validated = $request->validate([
            'name' => 'required|string',
            'description' => 'nullable|string',
            'price' => 'required|numeric|min:0',
            'category_id' => 'required|exists:categories,id',
        ]);

        $product = Product::create($validated);
        return response()->json($product, 201);
    }

    public function show($id)
    {
        return response()->json(Product::with('category')->findOrFail($id), 200);
    }

    public function update(Request $request, $id)
    {
        $product = Product::findOrFail($id);

        $validated = $request->validate([
            'name' => 'required|string',
            'description' => 'nullable|string',
            'price' => 'required|numeric|min:0',
            'category_id' => 'required|exists:categories,id',
        ]);

        $product->update($validated);
        return response()->json($product, 200);
    }

    public function destroy($id)
    {
        Product::findOrFail($id)->delete();
        return response()->json(['message' => 'Product deleted successfully'], 200);
    }
}

Step 6: Define Routes

routes/api.php

use App\Http\Controllers\Api\CategoryController;
use App\Http\Controllers\Api\ProductController;

Route::middleware('auth:api')->group(function () {
    Route::apiResource('categories', CategoryController::class)->except(['create', 'edit']);
    Route::apiResource('products', ProductController::class)->except(['create', 'edit']);
});

Step 7: Testing with Postman

Categories

• GET /api/categories → List categories

• POST /api/categories → Create category

{ "name": "Electronics" }

• GET /api/categories/1 → Show category

• PUT /api/categories/1 → Update category

{ "name": "Smartphones" }

• DELETE /api/categories/1 → Delete category

Products

• GET /api/products → List products with category details

• POST /api/products → Create product

{
  "name": "iPhone 17",
  "description": "Latest Apple smartphone",
  "price": 999.99,
  "category_id": 1
}

• GET /api/products/1 → Show product

• PUT /api/products/1 → Update product

{
  "name": "iPhone 17 Pro",
  "description": "Updated model",
  "price": 1199.99,
  "category_id": 1
}

• DELETE /api/products/1 → Delete product

🎯 Conclusion

You now have a fully functional Products & Categories API in Laravel 12 secured with JWT authentication.

This setup includes:

• ✅ Category management (CRUD)

• ✅ Product management (CRUD with category relation)

• ✅ Clean RESTful controllers & routes

• ✅ Postman-tested endpoints

With this foundation, you can further extend the API by adding authentication, user roles, and permissions as needed. 🚀

Want the full source code?

Download the complete Laravel 12 JWT API Authentication example on my GitHub repo here.

Happy Coding!